Deficiency of Mucosal-Associated Invariant T Cells in TCRJα18 Germline Knockout Mice

Mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells and invariant NK T (iNKT) cells account for the major lymphocyte populations that express invariant TCRα-chains. MAIT cells mostly express the TCRVα19-Jα33 TCR in mice and the TCRVα7.2-Jα33 TCR in humans, whereas iNKT cells express the TCRVα14-Jα18 TCR in mice and the TCRVα24-Jα18 TCR in humans. Both MAIT and iNKT cells have the capacity to quickly produce a variety of cytokines in response to agonist stimuli and to regulate both innate and adaptive immunity. The germline TCRJα18 knockout (Traj18 ) mice have been used extensively for studying iNKT cells. Although it has been reported that the TCRα repertoire was narrowed and the level of Trav19-ja33 transcript was decreased in this strain of mice, direct assessment of MAIT cells in these mice has not been reported. We demonstrate in this study that this strain of mice is also defective of MAIT T cells, cautioning data interpretation when using this strain of mice.